Thorium Plasma Batteries – The Disruptive Oil Giant Killer Technology

At the risk of being black-balled and ostracized by my government and peers, I feel compelled to speak out as a plasma physicist. Since 1959 the scientific community has known that Thorium was a better, safer, and more economical option to power nuclear reactors, yet they pursued uranium – why?

Simply put – because Thorium cannot be used to make nuclear bombs or power nuclear submarines – the two driving forces that gave birth to America’s nuclear program. Why is Thorium superior? For Five reasons as follows:

1. Thorium is more stable and contains 20% more energy density than Uranium, thus yielding more energy per ton and dollar.

2. It is impossible for Thorium reactors to have a catastrophic meltdown like we saw with Uranium in Chernobyl. Therefore there is no lethal risk to the community or world.

3. Thorium is more readily available in abundance while Uranium deposits will be fully depleted within the next 10 years, and almost 80% of Thorium deposits are found in the U.S. not in unstable countries.

4. Thorium does not pose the disposal nightmare that we experienced with uranium over the last 3 decades.

5. Since Thorium is not suitable for atomic weapons, we need not worry about emerging nations who really want and need and nuclear energy while we fear a secret nuclear weapons program.

So with all these benefits, why are we still using dangeous uranium that makes every nuclear reactor a ticking time bomb? In simple terms – the military industrial complex, big oil, and all the politicians whose campaigns were funded and supported by both.

In 2004, Thorium plasma batteries made their debut as compact portable devices that could provide reliable power for 3-7 years, non-stop, without a recharge. Three inventors came up with 3 different but similar designs and all three worked flawlessly – providing a green alternate energy source with no adverse safety or environmental concerns.

Since these stand-alone batteries can be manufactured in various sizes consider the following applications:

But think BIG and one of these plasma batteries the size of a shoebox could power a complete 5 bedroom house and every appliance in it. Or one the size of Hummer could power a complete 300 unit condominium complex without any external power grid connection. But think even bigger still… A battery the size of that same 5 bedroom house could power the City of Dayton – by plugging it into the local power grid. And there would be zero emissions. Thorium plasma power can eliminate every coal plant in the world in less than 5 years. But it gets better still…

If we were to drive electric cars and trucks powered by plasma battery technology, we could reduce global warming by 30% within five years and perhaps 50% within a decade. But what is good for mankind and our grandchildren poses a huge threat of financial loss to others – primarily big oil and politicians. Here is why…

While two-faced politicians talk about greening the world every four years just before they face elections, they are being wined and dined by big oil (Remember the Cheney-Enron affair?) to complicitly keep us addicted to oil. Why?

Because roughly 43% of all revenues paid for gasoline and other fuels are collected by the government in taxes, and these taxes provide more than a third of the nation’s operating budget. Adopting green Thorium plasma battery technology would reduce national oil consumption by more than 85% and how would our pols get by with 33% less tax revenues. Once gotten, graft is no sot easy to surrender as one Senator told me last year – “It would be easier to quit smoking after 10 years of chain smoking!”

So in essence, short term greed obfuscates even the chance of any long term vision or concern for our grandchildren. But if we found a way to use Thorium to make some horrific weapons of mass destruction that could kill millions if people in some foreign oil-rich land 5,000 miles away, Congress would be throwing billions into its development. In reality, those who are supposed to be serving “We the people” are simply serving themselves and the oil giants for as long as they can possibly profit.

Actually, my recent information is that the U.S. and Russian militaries are already using these nifty batteries in their most sacred and secret programs (i.e. unmanned underwater missile launchers, spy drones, super long-range torpedoes, etc). So while Uncle Sam ignores our critical and immediate public need for green energy and clean air, they are preparing for some future war that could be years away, even though we now have enough weapons in our arsenal to destroy every major city in the Eastern hemisphere within 10 hours!

Meanwhile, there are over 100 nuclear plants fueled by dangerous uranium vulnerable to natural disasters, terrorist attack, or targeted in the event of our next war. Each and every time a nuclear accident takes place, we all become potential victims left only at the mercy of the blowing winds. Our fates our left to luck.

Japan’s nuclear fiasco is perhaps the final alarm Mother Nature will sound for us. Those of you with the interest and intelligence to sort fact from fiction need to start doing a little homework about Thorium plasma battery technologies and put the screws to your local pols, and compel them to put commitments in writing before they get your vote. As you may know by now, their ears only listen to us citizens every four years. Afterwards, they let money do all the talking – at our expense and risk.

Why can’t thorium plasma batteries drive our cars? What we have now is inadequate.

Good luck getting politicians on-side. They are definitely addicted to re-election every 4 years.

Rick on Tue, 12th Apr 2011 5:21 am

Sounds great. But we humans who do not know how to manage resources, the Thorium would be gone in no time. Think Peak Thorium.

cipi604 on Tue, 12th Apr 2011 3:34 pm

Now, regarding the fact that this article talks only about the master of the universe, old mighty USA, the whole info it gives is pure garbage taking into account the fact that thorium-fission is studied for a long time, and in many countries. If it was cheap and doable, somebody would have had it alraedy(i.e. China or India or Europa)
The problem with thorium is an old one, the reactor itself.
Second, just because the article starts with garbage, I believe the info about the plasma thorium gismo is also some BS with no real story behind.
Plus, OU from thorium makes me laugh… get over it people, nothing to see here.

DC on Tue, 12th Apr 2011 5:44 pm

Why display this junk? Nuclear is a failure by every single metric you could employ. 2/3 of a century on and all we have to show for is staggering amounts of the most toxic waste possible, accidents, and immense cost. Yes it does produce usable net energy, but at a cost we simply cant afford. And these techno-nerds solution? Replace the whole system with another set of immense complex costly reactors that are totally unproven and who knows what Thoriums downsides would be? Probably more or less the same as what we have now, or worse. We are simply too primitive and incompotent as a species to manage what we have now. Good thing this articles fantasy will never come to pass…

George on Wed, 13th Apr 2011 11:23 pm

DC needs to do some homework on Thorium since just about every sentence he wrote is false. At the very least people should read the links of something they want to criticize. Ignorance is bliss and that CarterB is why we are not driving cars with Thorium Plasma Batteries – even though they do exist and are being used by Russian and U.S. military for 2-3 years already. And if there is nothing to Thorium, why is the U.S. Department of Energy Sponsoring a huge Thorium Symposium next month in Washington? Why is India operating 3 Thorium reactors right now that put out 200 times the energy than uranium with zero chance of a meltdown. Those who want to poo-poo Thorium should at least get their facts straight. The world has enough deposits to power the world for over 1,000 years according to the DoE. The world also has enough morons, so please don’t add yourself to the list by suggesting Thorium has no merits!

As you read these words nuclear plants in India are operating on Thorium – the only green nuclear fuel in the world. As per my original post, there is zero chance of a melt-down or any other catastrophic accident possible with Thorium. If anyone takes the time to do their homework on what has been happening with Thorium inventors and active proponents, there is no doubt that someone does not want the world weaned away from oil and uranium. Thorium is by far the best and safest alternate energy fuel that can stop global warming in it tracks. It can do everything that Uranium can without the problems, risks, dangers, and at half the expense.

Another Naruto poster discovered the promise of Thorium a while back and posted his comments at:

Now when I think back to 2005 when I listened to Professor Shimoda lecture for 4 hours on Thorium Plasma Battery possibilities in Osaka, I recall there were two goons in suits with short hair sitting in the back and video-taping the lecture and everyone attending.

Almost a year later in October of 2006, I had my office burglarized and although no expensive laptops or cash was stolen, someone did swipe my plasma battery research notebook. It was no big deal to me at the time because I had all my notes scanned into my hard drive anyway. But now I am convinced that strange and perhaps sinister things are going on in the military worlds where plasma batteries could provide a strategic edge (i.e. tanks that could roll across Europe and Asia for months without a single refueling, or perhaps an RC killer drone powered by an electric motor and plasma power battery that could stay aloft for months if the weather permits)

Plasma batteries are without any doubt, disruptive technology. They are a game changer on the highway too. All current electric vehicles require some recharging. Thorium plasma batteries can theoretically provide consistent energy flow for their entire half life (10 years). Can you imagine driving a car for even 5 years with no recharge and no damn gasoline?!?

Recently the President of Panasonic boasted that they would soon unveil a cell phone that needed no recharging for three years. My bet is that phone will be powered with a Thorium plasma battery. Mark my words and those of Professor Shimoda “Thorium is the fuel of the future, and the future is now.”

It is clearly time for victims of Chernobyl and Fukishima to file a class action suit against Westinghouse, General Electric, Ariva, and every other nuclear company that has deliberately ignored safe, green, and cheaper Thorium fuel in favor of Uranium. Going bask as far as 1977, Dupont, Los Alamos Lab, and the DoE acknowledged that Uranium posed public safety issues and Throrium did not. Only because Thorium could not be used to make nuclear weapons was Uranium imposed upon the world – with dire consequences as we now see in Japan. Where are the lawyers when you really need one with integrity?

TOMMY BURN on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 10:08 am

PLEASE ADD ME TO YOUR MAILING LIST. I AM A MERCHANT BANKER AND WANT TO START A COMPANY THAT PRODUCES THORIUM BATTERIES. PLEASE PUT ME IN TOUCH WITH SCIENTISTS THAT CAN ASSIST ME IN THIS ENDEVOUR.

BEST
TB

Davy on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 10:57 am

Georgie Porgy, Thorium is too little too late for a complex interconnected global system at the end of growth and at diminishing returns in every single vital component to its foundational survival.

Technology is the problem not the answer. Complexity is the problem not the answer. Energy intensity is the problem not the answer. Over population and overconsumption cannot be solved by more of what got us here. You are pissing in the wind.

Thorium technology which I know very little about may make a niche area if all these glorious talk you give it is true. I doubt even a portion of it is scalable. These wonder technologies just are not going to save us from ourselves. I am not going to argue the technology but I will argue the sanity of it all. Just google Einstein and see what he quoted about problem solving with the same tech that got you into trouble in the first place.

Georgie you talk like an exceptionalist preaching technology and innovation will save us. You are full of hopium and hubris but with little substance. I wish it were true. I wish all this had a happy ending. BAU is sweet for me currently. If I wanted to be a BAUtopian and worship false gods I would have it made.

I have rejected BAUtopianism and its offshoot of technological cornucopianism. We are at the end of the road and need to power down with the understanding this power down will be painful, ugly, and likely deadly. Yet, when you have no choices you do what you have to do and hope for the best. Otherwise the tide will sweep you away and drown you. You will wash up on the beach like a dead whale stinking and rotting in the sun with crabs picking at your bones.

GregT on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 11:04 am

WTF?

This article was posted on PO.com on April 11, 2011?

ghung on Thu, 12th Mar 2015 12:41 pm

Gosh, George this is exciting, especially for me since I live in a battery-powered home already. The thorium plasma battery would be just the ticket. Please show me a diagram of how they work, and some specs (voltages available, amperage limits, sizes, etc.). I’ve tried to find information online (I’m pretty good at that), but seem to be only finding the same links which keep referring back to each other, all from 2011, including the one you quoted from (rather amateurishly, but I understand).

“From time to time there appear in the public domain stories and advertisements about revolutionary consumer products and their technical underpinnings. These communications make outlandish, but very exciting, claims. Many of these involve promises of huge dollar savings to the consumer. These opportunistic authors use the interesting technique of attaching their literally incredible claims to credible science. The incredible is pulled along by the coattails of the credible. If such stories and theories are not addressed by rational scientific analysis, the incredible can taint what has been a very credible message about a very credible technology.

Recently, stories have appeared touting the feasibility of the Thorium Powered Car, and about the existence and utility of “Thorium Plasma batteries.” The information in these stories is false…..”

More cover-up. How disappointing. Predictably, Wikipedia has no page for thorium plasma batteries, though there is a large article on thorium reactors. No mention there that India has three operational thorium reactors. Must be out of date, since your post says that there are.

Regarding the “Department of Energy Sponsoring a huge Thorium Symposium” you informed us about, the only info I can find from such a symposium is from 1958… Please provide a reference; enquiring minds want to know. I did see where a legislator petitioned Congress for funds to restart the Oak Ridge National Laboratory thorium research, but that didn’t get far. More cover-up it seems.

It may interest you all to know that of the 6 inventors involved in this project, 5 of them were murdered or disappeared. The sixth, an American has gone underground and apparently is hiding. Big oil cannot be very happy with these inventors eh? Kind of like when they poisoned Michael Myers who drove around in his dune buggy powered by water in the 1980s.

John Thatcher on Mon, 3rd Aug 2015 5:02 pm

Usual tosh.all talk no proof.
Even if thorium could power cars etc money is the real power find a green energy that keeps the oil companies in easy money your in with a chance.
Other wise the rich and powerful will crush it.

Some of you are confusing Thorium nuclear reactor technology with Thorium plasma battery technology – definetly not the same! The batteries use magnets and the the 232 Thorium isotope. The reactor teachnology uses molten salt and fission technology. Be aware of the difference folks.